AGI urges government to strengthen institutions

Nana Owusu-Afari, President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), on Wednesday called on government to strengthen capacity of institutions responsible for checking the importation of products.

He said AGI was concerned about importation of inferior goods for public consumption. Nana Owusu-Afari made the call at the launch of the 4th AGI Local Content Exhibition and Conference on the theme: “Making Local Content Work” scheduled from 21st to 24th October, 2013 in Accra.

The local Content Exhibition and Conference is a public-private partnership project among some government Ministries, the AGI, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and Tullow Ghana limited. The AGI President said the event was intended to help promote business between the local and the international companies.

He urged businesses to take advantage of the platform being provided to participate in the conference and the exhibition to grow their businesses. He announced that the fourth edition of the conference would include the housing sector with regard to local content development.

“The scope of the event has been expanded from the first edition that featured only the oil and gas sector to include the energy and mining sectors,” he added. Nana Owusu-Afari commended government and the respective state ministries for developing the local content policy for the sector to help maximize the use of local expertise, goods and services and job creation.

He said policies and laws would not be sufficient condition for effective implementation of the local content but needed to be complemented by effective capacity development.

Mr Vincent Oppong Asamoah, Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, said government had introduced favourable policies to promote the involvement of local companies in the building and construction sector.

He said the Ministry intended to improve the building designing and construction in the rural areas in collaboration with the district assemblies. He expressed the hope that the collaboration would improve rural estate development in the country.